Introduction

Samuel Taylor Coleridge made ambitious claims for himself as a philosopher. In Biographici Literaria, for instance, he announces his 'system' to be 'no other than the system of Pythagoras and of Plato revived and purified from impure mixtures'. Coleridge always wrote and talked with an audience in mind, and if his audience drew comparisons with Plato, he was doubtless delighted. The chapter describes how Plato was central to Coleridge's vision of the circular movement of philosophical history. Coleridge employs mimesis and inspiration negative models in his own criticism, and shares the Platonic anxiety that poetic language may be sub-philosophical. Anxiety of reception is caused by the possibility of political reprisals against authors of certain types of writing; by the threat of hostile reviews; or by the belief that most readers are unqualified or unworthy to receive the material. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.